Accreditation

What is a recognised school?

“Recognised schools are authorised to issue certification that has a legal value. The private and recognised schools are liberal as far as cultural and pedagogical/didactic orientation is concerned”.

The MIUR requirements are:

• To have an educational project in line with the national constitution.
• To have a didactic programme that conforms with the national requirements and standards in force.
• To have democratically elected school committees. To allow the enrolment of any student.
• To have a full cycle of studies with qualified teachers.

The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) was founded in Geneva in 1968. It is a non-profit organization that guarantees a high standard of education to more than one million students in 146 countries around the world. The IB’s mission has been built on a cornerstone of creating a better world through education.

The IBO mission statement reads: "The International Baccalaureate® aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right."

The Primary Years Program (PYP) at BES is taught to students from ages 6 to 11 and comprises a programme of inquiry made up of six units for each year level. These areas are investigated through six transdisciplinary themes that are chosen because of their ability to focus on issues across subject areas and their relevance to the real world. The transdisciplinary themes are:

• Who we are
• Where we are in place and time
• How we express ourselves
• How the world works
• How we organize ourselves
• Sharing the planet

How do we prepare the innovators of tomorrow? By encouraging play, passion and by finalizing the activity to an objective: creativity – that is, to be able to innovate, experiment, make mistakes, to retry, believe in a new beginning – this is the key to success.

Tony Wagner, Ph. D. - Harvard University

What is LEGO Education?

The LEGO®️ LEIS program reflects the founding principles of constructivism: “I learn by doing.” This is also an integral part of all learning at BES. BES is the first school in Milan to introduce the LEGO Education Innovation Studio. In the seventies, LEGO created an education division to define a didactic approach for students of the 21st century. The company, famous for their coloured bricks, collaborates with the robotics department of MIT in Boston and with the Faculty of Pedagogy at the University of Cambridge.

LEGO®️ LEIS aims to connect robotics, maths, sciences, technology, language, geography, and more through hands-on learning experiences. To develop the logical and linguistic skills of our students, at BES we introduce Lego lessons from an early age (BAPS) and continue up until Y8 (BES). Obviously, we start with simple creations using the famous coloured bricks, and build toward ever more complicated constructions that integrate mechanics and coding, according to the developmental stages of the child.

From Primary to Middle School, our students can approach the numerous subjects introduced in their Units of Inquiry in a more tactile way. The LEGO®️ Education project stimulates the students' critical-thinking skills, their creativity, and their ability to collaborate, promoting open-mindeness and problem solving. Our LEIS makes use of a range of different kits, such as “More to Math”, “Story Starter”, and the robotics and coding-centred “WeDo” and “Mindstorms”.

What distinguishes this art laboratory from all the others is the method: if I listen I will forget, if I see, I remember, if I do I understand

Bruno Munari, artist and designer

What is the Bruno Munari® methodology?

Visual art cannot be explained in words, it must be experienced: words are forgotten, experience on the other hand remains. In our atelier, we "play with visual art”. Children explore and develop competence with a range of techniques, and investigate works of art from around the world and throughout history. Through experience, they discover the different qualities of materials and the characteristics of the instruments. Children learn through play.